a neo-civil war right now between george w. bush, the establishment republicans and the trumpians. >> all right. douglas brinkley, thank you so much. be sure to tune into cnn this sunday for "state of the union." that's it for "the lead." i'm jake tapper. turning you over to wolf blitzer in "the situation room." have a great weekend. happening now. breaking news. false claims. white house chief of staff john kelly got his facts wrong when he attacked a democratic congresswoman. there is video to prove it. the white house is defending kelly, joining him in calling the congresswoman names and telling reporters it's highly inappropriate to question kelly because he's a four-star general. separated. all breaking, sources tell cnn one of the soldiers was found nearly a mile away from the scene of the niger ambush. why was he separated from his comrades? secretary of defense james mattis is briefing senators up on capitol hill. why are they warning the war on terror is morphing and u.s.

troops need to do more in africa? hoax versus reality. president trump again dismisses the russia meddling investigation as a hoax and says the really story is about russia and uranium. is it a real story? we'll ask a former top national security adviser to vice president biden and hillary clinton. and not giving up. one of kim jong-un's top diplomats says north korea will never give up its nuclear weapons and says the united states should be prepared to co-exist with a nuclear north korea. will that ever happen? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn breaking news. the white house press secretary sarah sanders this afternoon said the white house chief of staff john kelly absolutely stands by his criticism of a democratic congresswoman and told reporters

it is highly inappropriate to question a four-star general. kelly bitterly attacked florida representative frederica wilson after she criticized president trump's handling of a phone call to the widow of wasn't of the four u.s. soldiers killed earlier this month in niger. video of a 2015 speech by wilson, a speech kelly cited when he called the congresswoman se selfishish and an empty barrel. the controversy is overshadowing very serious questions about what happened during and after the niger ambush. cnn has learned the body of one of the u.s. soldiers was found nearly a mile away from the central scene of the ambush. the pentagon is still looking at the exact circumstances of how he became separated. defense secretary james mattis was on capitol hill this afternoon to brief senate armed services committee chairman senator john mccain. after the meeting, mattis told

reporters that the pentagon, quote, can do better at communication. we're also following other ominous warnings coming from north korea right now. one of kim jong-un's top diplomats says north korea's nuclear weapons program is nonnegotiable and the u.s. needs to co-exist with a nuclear armed north korea. our correspondents, analysts and specialists, they will have full coverage of the day's stories, but let's begin with cnn's sara murray. she's over at the white house. sara, the white house clearly standing by the chief of staff john kelly's criticism of congresswoman wilson. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. and nearly everyone involved in this has lamented, expressed regret that this incident has turned into some kind of political battle, and yet again today folks are trading barbs as this political fight spills into another day. the president's response to a u.s. soldier killed in niger devolving into a political brawl. trump taking to twitter again

overnight to blast the congresswoman who accused him of being insensitive in a condolence call when he told myesha johnson, the would off of sergeant la david johnson that her husband knew what he got into when he signed up to the serve. the fake news is going crazy with whacky congresswoman wilson who was secretly on a private call and gave a total lie on content, trump said. what began over an ambush that began in niger that left four american soldiers dead now morphing into a political battle over how the commander in chief carries out his most solemn duty, comforting the families of soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. just today earlier white house chief of staff and retired marine general john kelly made a rare appearance in the briefing room. a gold-star father him, he lamented that a call between the commander in chief and the widow of a fallen soldier was being politicized. >> it stuns me that a member of congress would have listened in on that conversation. absolutely stuns me.

and i thought at least that was sacred. >> reporter: wilson says she's close with the family and was with them when the president called. but kelly went further in his criticism thursday, taking another swipe at the congresswoman. >> and the congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building. and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money. she called up president obama and gave the money, the $20 million to build the building. and she sat down. we were stunned. stunned that she had done it. even for someone that is that empty a barrel. we were stunned. >> reporter: wilson quickly took issue with how the chief of staff portrayed her appearance at the fbi building dedication.

>> i was not even in congress in 2009 when the money for the building was secured. so that's a lie. how dare he. however, i named the building at the behest of director comey. with the help of speaker boehner. working across party lines. so he didn't tell the truth, and he needs to stop telling lies on me. >> reporter: a video of the 2015 dedication from the sun sentinel doesn't back up kelly's version of events. while the congresswoman touts her efforts in getting the building named for the fallen fbi agents, there is no discussion of securing funding for the project. >> earn said that's impossible. it takes at least eight months to a year to complete the process through the house, the senate and to the president's office. i said, i'm a school principal.

and i said, excuse my fresh, oh, hell no. we're going to get this done. >> reporter: and she takes pains to thank the law enforcement officials in attendance and praised the slain fbi agents being honored. >> most men and women in law enforcement leave their homes for work knowing that there is a possibility they may not return. all men and women and first responders who work in law enforcement stand up. stand up now so that we can applaud you and what you do. stand up. we are proud of you. we're proud of your courage. thank you. >> reporter: still, the white house is standing by kelly's criticism of the congresswoman. >> as general kelly pointed out, if you're able to make a sacred act like honoring american heros all about yourself, you're an empty barrel. in you don't understand that

reference, i'll put it a little more simply. as we say in the south, all hat, no cattle. >> reporter: even going so far as to suggest general kelly's military background inokculates him from criticism. >> i think he addressed that yesterday. >> i'm not talking about yesterday, i'm talking about getting the money. >> in you want to go after general kelly, that's up to you. if you want to get into a debate with a four-star marine general, think that's something highly inappropriate. >> reporter: amid all of the political sniping, still few answers from the administration on what exactly happened during the mission in niger that went so badly awry. >> thank you all very much. >> reporter: now, today, sarah sanders refused to entertain really any questions about that mission in niger, instead insisting the administration would wait until an investigation into the events is completed. back to you, wolf. >> the president we just heard, he was asked at that photo-op

with the visiting u.n. secretary-general if he authorized the mission in niger. he ignored the question. he said thank you and that was that. sara murray over at the white house. the entire controversy over gold-star families and the president began more than two weeks ago with the deaths of the soldiers in niger. we have breaking news about the ambush. let's bring in our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. barbara, what are your sources telling you? >> wolf, we are getting some very interesting details about some of the early reports of what happened. our sources are cautioning us things could change, they could get more information, but there are still so many questions to be answered. sergeant la david johnson was found nearly a mile away from the central scene of the ambush, according to four administration officials familiar with the early assessment. they all caution this is the early picture and the investigation continues. the pentagon is still looking at the exact circumstances of how

he became separated from his unit. the entire team led by green berets has been interviewed, officials say, about when they last saw johnson. the u.s. team had stopped in a town on the niger/mali border so the nigerians they were working with could pick up supplies, including food and water and then they met with village elders. investigators believe the ambush may have begun when the u.s. soldiers were back in their vehicles, possibly even driving. as those killed are laid to rest, defense secretary james mattis on capitol hill briefed senator john mccain one day after mccain, chairman of the armed services committee, threatened subpoenas if the pentagon doesn't start telling congress what it knows. >> i felt that we were not getting a sufficient amount of information and we are clearing a lot of that up now. >> reporter: mattis refusing to publicly comment why the fbi is now involved in gathering

intelligence on the suspected isis militant that ambushed the u.s. forces. >> the fbi would have jurisdiction to investigate and bring back the perpetrators to the u.s. if it can be done. >> reporter: the pressure is mounting for a public explanation, what did happen to sergeant johnson? >> he was abandoned for two days. for 48 hours. why? why didn't they pick him up and put him on their shoulders like they did the other fallen comrades and put him on a helicopter and take him to safety? he could have still been alive. >> reporter: but mattis is fiercely adamant that troops on the ground did everything they could. >> having seen some of the news reports, the u.s. military does not leave its troops behind, and i would just ask that you not question the actions of the troops who were caught in the fire fight and question whether or not they did everything they could in order to bring everyone out at once.

>> reporter: and taking pains to point out all troops face risk, top brass pushing back hard. >> i'll tell you categorically that from the moment of contact, no one's left behind, either u.s., our partner, nigerian forces and french forces were actively on the ground searching for this soldier. >> now a top senior military officer has been appointed to lead the investigation. besides finding out what happened to sergeant johnson, one of the key questions certainly will be, what was the intelligence, how is it that nobody knew that isis would be there? wolf? >> and why were they not in armor armored vehicles when they went into that area? they're so vulnerable if they're not in these armored personnel carriers or at least some armored vehicle. >> well, in this area of niger, it gets back to the intelligence. the assessment had been it would be unlikely, those were words that we're hearing, unlikely

that they would run into opposition. and, remember, this is a mission to advise and assist, to help train the local nigerian forces to be able to look after their own security. nobody had the expectation of combat, but i have to tell you, wolf, all of this being looked at and changes could be coming. >> yeah, i assume changes will be coming. they have to learn from this to make sure it doesn't happen again. looks like there was a major, major intelligence blunder leading up to the deaths of these four u.s. soldiers. barbara, no way you're working your sources. we'll get back to you. barbara starr at the pentagon. i'm joined now by jake sullivan, top national security adviser to both vice president joe biden and hillary clinton. jake, thanks very much for coming in. what does it tell you, first of all, there's a lot to discuss, that the condolence called has now all of a sudden over these past few days become so politicized. >> it's really unfortunate. when you have the deaths of u.s. service members like we did in niger, the first thing we should be asking is what you just asked, how do we prevent it from

happening again? i have to say, it was president trump who kicked off the politics by falsely claiming that his predecessors don't get involved in talking to the families of the fallen. he did that basically to deflect responsibility from his own silence on this -- this crisis in niger over the past 12 days. so everything that's followed from that has been the result of responding to donald trump's original sin in this, and if the president would just stand up and say, let's take the politics away, let's get to the bottom of this, we'd all be better off. >> yeah. the white house chief of staff, retired four-star marine corps general john kelly, he clearly seriously mischaracterized what democratic congresswoman wilson said in that 2015 speech, dedicating this fbi building down in florida. so what impact will that have? because the white house today you heard sarah sanders, the press secretary, doubling down and refusing to acknowledge that he misspoke. >> well, both sean spicer and

sarah sanders have a history of doubling down on things that have proven to be demonstrably false. john kelly doesn't. so what i would like to know is whether kelly now that he has seen the videotape showing what he said was wrong, is he willing to step up and take responsibility and say, hey, i screwed that up? that would be the responsible thing to do. based on what i know of john kelly, that's what i would expect. >> he's a very decent guy. i know him myself. i assume once he looks at that nine-minute video and sees there was no mention of the money or anything like that, he'll pick up the phone, call the congresswoman and say, i'm sorry. >> exactly. the real question is if he doesn't do that, what does that say about the distortion of reality inside the trump white house? >> i assume he'll want do do that, but the white house, as you know, they double down, the press secretary, the president, they never acknowledge there has been a mistake. that's a serious problem right now. you worked in national security in the white house for a long time. did you ever think it was inappropriate to question a four-star general? >> of course not.

in fact, it is the job of civilian oversight of the military that people like the president and senior civilian advisers ask hard questions of the military. respect their judgement, respect especially the commanders in the field and what they're seeing on the ground, but fundamentally this is the united states of america. it doesn't matter how many stars are on your shoulders or what political position you hold or how big your bank account is, everybody should be questioned based on facts and evidence, and that should happen here, too. >> because sarah sanders speaks for the president of the united states, speaks for the white house, and when she tells reporters they can't question a four-star general as respected as general kelly is, she clearly doesn't appreciate what freedom of the press really means. >> well, there are two two layers to this that are problematic. the first layer is, of course we should be questioning four-star generals just like everyone else. the second layer is, john kelly is now a civilian. he's a civilian occupying a political position in the white house. so his former military service

shouldn't keep him from answering hard questions and certainly his current position shouldn't. what sarah sanders said in the briefing room on this issue is something that is deeply troubling and the press should keep asking the hard questions. >> he is a retired four-star general. look, i was a pentagon correspondent. i used to ask tough questions of active duty four-star generals during the persian gulf war on almost a daily basis. there should have been a lot more tough questions asked to the four-star eligibles during the vietnam war. as we now know all these years later, they lied, and the u.s. government involved in a vietnam war that turned out to be a disaster because those tough questions were not really asked. >> look, politicians make mistakes and they should be asked hard questions of. civilian professionals in the national security apparatus make mistakes and they should be asked hard questions of. the same goes for uniformed flag officers and uniformed officials as well. that is how the united states of america maintains its edge.

we push ourselves. we make sure that we hold ourselves to the highest standard, no matter what uniform you're wearing or wearing not uniform at all. >> having worked closely with four starr general for many years, i can tell you they want to be asked tough questions. they know they're not perfect. they know they makes in stakes and i know the responsibility of a free press, they know the responsibility of the house and the senate, the congress, they want to be asked tough questions. what sarah sanders said today clearly doesn't make any sense. she needs to come out herself and apologize for what she said. >> i'll say just one more thing on this. the thing that gives the u.s. military an edge, unlike a lot of other militaries in the world where you're not allowed to question the generals, there is a culture in our military of holding responsible people for their actions and their words. of taking accountability. of learning from mistakes. evolving and adapting. that's what makes our military special. so when sarah sanders suggests that you have to just take as given anything that someone like john kelly says, she's talking

about not the first rate military of the united states, but third rate militaries of other countries. >> stand by, jake. we have more to discuss. there are other developments unfolding right now. we'll take a quick break. we'll be right back. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. do not use if you are allergic to taltz. before starting you should be checked for tuberculosis. taltz may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you are being treated

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states. and i'm going to put up on the screen some tweets from donald trump. not that long ago, how can general martin dempsey tell obama that delaying the syrian bombardment will have no consequences? he is no patton or mccarthy. we can go on because very often during the campaign and elsewhere, he would question america's generals. and for the press secretary to come out and tell reporters today you can't question a four-star general is clearly ridiculous. >> well, donald trump was exercising his rights as an american to go say what he wanted about those generals. by the way, i completely disagree with everything he said about them, but he certainly had a right to say it if he wanted to. >> he could question -- the chairman of the joint chiefs, whoever he wanted and journalists should be automobile to do so as well. sarah sanders needs to learn something about democracy, the freedom of the press, the first amendment and responsibility. let's talk a bit about another very sensitive subject. i want you to listen to what the president said yesterday when it comes to the obama administration, russia and uranium.

>> uranium is a big subject. if the mainstream media would cover the uranium scandal and that russia has 20% of our uranium for whatever reason, and a lot of people understand what those reasons may be, i think that's your russia story. that's your real russia story, not a story where they talk about collusion, and there was none. it was a hoax. your real russia story is uranium. >> all right. you worked in the obama administration. you were a national security adviser. you worked in the state department. what's your reaction to the charge, a very serious charge leveled by the president? >> it has no basis in fact. it's been looked at not just in the past weeks, but over the past month and more than a year now. people have looked at this and there is really nothing to it. this went through a nine-agency committee. a review of whether or not the sale of this uranium mine passed

national security standards. the nine agency committee determined that it did. the sale went through. there is not a lot else to talk about. if, in fact, some of the most recent reporting that we've seen about individuals, you know, bears out to be true, i don't know whether or not that will be something, but in terms of the obama administration generally or secretary clinton or any other cabinet level official, there was nothing here. >> but why would -- why would the obama administration through this review and hillary clinton was part of the review process allow a russian company to have access and purchase 20% of the u.s. uranium stockpile? >> to be honest with you, i'm not familiar how they went through this determination. all i can tell you is there is a rigorous review participated in by the energy department, the defense department, the treasury department, the defense department, on down the line to ask the question, does a particular transaction like this harm the national security of the united states? career professionals took a look at that and concluded it didn't.

i can't tell you what their reasoning was, but i can't substitute my judgement for theirs. >> and the accusation that some of these russians who were involved were giving the clinton foundation thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars and bill clinton was going to russia to deliver speeches for huge speaking fees. >> so, first of all, hillary clinton wasn't actually involved in the decision about the uranium mine, which is kind of a fundamental point. >> wasn't she on that nine-member panel? >> the justice department state department was on that panel. >> she was secretary of state. >> she was the secretary of state. this decision was taken by a lower level official within the state department. which is fairly common when these kinds of decisions come forward. then beyond that, a lot of what has been suggested about various payments or financial transactions has been absolutely debunked. when you start picking through the actual facts underlying this story, you see there is nothing to it. >> with the russians having access to 20% of u.s. uranium, that shouldn't have been approved by low-level officials,

it should have gone to high-end officials. >> it's hard to say. at the end of the day, we have a process that works for russian acquisitions or chinese or other countries constantly coming forward. i'm sure the trump administration is dealing with them right now. what goes before a cabinet secretary and what is dealt with by the experts, the professionals who actually know what the political and practical impacts of these things are, it's hard -- i'm not going to substitute my judgement for the judgement of the people who made this decision. >> jake sullivan, thanks very much for coming in. coming up much more on the name-calling between president trump's white house chief of staff retired john kelly and the florida congresswoman frederica wilson. the white house claims it's highly inappropriate to question a four-star general. >> the congresswoman stood up and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building.

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only a dignity memorial professional can celebrate a life like no other. find out how at sanfranciscodignity.com. we're following the breaking news. the white house refusing to back off from white house chief of staff john kelly's criticism of a florida congresswoman. even though video shows kelly got his facts wrong when he

talked about a speech that representative frederica wilson gave back in 2015. let's get some insight from our political experts. mark preston, i know that the white house chief of staff seriously mischaracterized what congresswoman wilson said back then. i want you to listen to what kelly said yesterday. >> and the congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building. and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money and she just called up president obama and on that phone call he gave the money, the $20 million to build the building. >> all right. that's not what she said. we now have the videotape of that event, courtesy of "the sun sentinel" newspapers down in florida. listen to a little bit of what she said talking about how she played a role in getting that

building, that fbi building, named after two slain fbi agents. >> everyone said that's impossible. it takes at least eight months to a year to complete the process through the house, the senate and to the president's office. i said -- i'm a school principal. and i said, excuse my french, oh, hell no. we're going to get this done. immediately, i went into attack mode. i went to the speaker, speaker boehner, and i said, mr. speaker, i need your help. the fbi needs your help and our country needs your help. and guess what, the president signed the bill into law this past tuesday, april 7th, 2015

with a bang, bang, bang! >> she never spoke about the funding for that bill. actually, the funding for the bill came back in 2009. she wasn't even a member of congress in 2009. she never spoke about the money at all. he clearly got his facts wrong. >> he clearly got his facts wrong. not only on that, he got his act facts wrong on the names of the agent who's died in duty. he said they were grogan and duke. in fact, they were benjamin grogan and jerry dove. in addition to that, the chief of staff said they were shot, killed in a shootout with drug dealers. not true as well. they were killed in the line of duty, you know, in a bank robbery. having said that, it sounds like we're nitpicking the minor details, but it does call into question the preciseness of what the chief of staff remembers from that day. >> yeah, it's a serious problem. phil mudd, i want you to weigh in on it as well. he also yesterday, the chief of staff, john kelly, a very

honorable man. he did condemn the fact that the condolence call that the president had made to the family, to the widow of that slain u.s. soldier, that had become politicized. >> he's right. look, everybody's wrong in this case. the president's wrong. the chief of staff is wrong. and the congresswoman is wrong here. we have one person who we're talking about who initiated this and that's a dead man who is 26 years old. how many times did his name come up today? how many times. we have people now saying, including the press secretary, we can't question a four-star general. the question about what happened with the family of that dead soldier didn't come up today, but the question of whether we could talk to a four-star general did. all of these people need to focus on one thing. serving the family of a dead officer by accusing each other of things like, in the case of the president of the united states, not grieving as well as i did. what he said about his predecessor. i think they all need to step back and say we have one, one

responsibility, to respect someone who is dead and to say we're sorry for the death, let's move on. again, i include the congresswoman, need to take a vacation, go to a two for one happy hour tonight and shut up. we should be done with this. >> all right. everybody, stand by. kaitlan, i'm going to come to you in a minute. we've got to take a quick break. we'll resume all of this and much more right after this.

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we're back with our political specialists.

kaitlan, you know, sarah huckabee sanders at the briefing today, she said this entire conversation should have stopped after general kelly's statement yesterday, his briefing yesterday. but, you know what, it didn't stop in part because later in the evening, the president tweeted this, the fake news is going crazy with whacky congresswoman wilson, d, who is secretly on a very private call and gave a total lie on content. what are you hearing about all of this at the white house? why is the president keeping this conversation going? >> well, we know this is a president who does not like to be slighted, regardless if it's about the phone calls to dead soldiers' families. we know clearly how he feels about the congresswoman and we know also from sources inside the white house he was thrilled with the way john kelly handled that very emotional briefing with reporters yesterday, and that he was even talking about it all morning at the white house. but let's not forget that the president is the one who opened the flood gates into all of this when my colleague sara murray asked him why he had not

commented on the deaths of those four soldiers and he was the one who remarked about what past presidents had did and said he called all the families of soldiers who had died, which led to reporters calling those families and got us to where we are now. and, yes, congressman wilson has added to this ongoing feud, but the president is certainly the one who started it. but overall the most important thing here is that the focus is shifting away from these four dead soldiers and on to a war of words between the white house and a congresswoman. >> listen to this tense exchange. i'm going to play it. sarah sanders, the white house press secretary, chip reid asked some tough questions, good questions. watch this. >> i think he's addressed that threat thoroughly yesterday. >> he was wrong yesterday in talking about getting the money. the money was secured before she came to congress. >> that's up to you, but if you want to get into a debate with a four-star marine general, i think that's something highly inappropriate. >> highly inappropriate. what was your reaction when you

heard that, mark? >> doesn't sound very american to me, right? the idea that you can't question authority. that's the whole premise of what our country was built upon, was the idea that you had freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and of course our government is et up in a way as well, you know, where we have the military separated from the civilian government. a couple of other things to note, and we've seen this before in the white house. they seem to tie everything to patriotism. it's not patriotic if you kneel down if you're an nfl player during the anthem. it's not patriotic if you question a four-star retired general. that in itself is wrong. i think we're making a mistake and i liked to hear what you said at the top when you described him as chief of staff kelly. he is no longer an active duty general. his job is a political appointee and he is the chief of staff. he should be questioned. and i leave it at this, back in 1783, these are very wise words from a man we all know well, the freedom of speech may be taken away and dumb and silent we may

be led like sheep to the slaughter. george washington said those words. >> i don't even think john kelly would agree with the sentiment from sarah sanders that you can't argue with a four-star marine general. i don't think he would agree with that. >> you know who else doesn't agree, phil mudd, the president's national security adviser, a three-star active duty general, h.r. mcmaster, who wrote an important balk about tabout -- book about the need to go back, review, question, and make sure you get it right, learn from those mistakes and so you don't repeat it. >> why are we talking about this? what was she talking about? what a hot mess this is. go back to a presidential debate, i guess we can't ask questions from wesley clark. former decorated general. i guess we can't go to the president of the united states dwight eisenhower and talk to him. he was a general, but he's a president now, we can't ask him any questions. how about colin powell. when you're secretary of state, you have your own plane. you know who is in the back? the press. i guess if he walks back there,

we can't ask any questions. when general mattis goes to the press briefing with the chairman of the joint chiefs, i guess he better stay mute because you're not allowed to ask anything. one questioned i'd ask of any sitting four-star general overseas in afghanistan. we're 16 years into a war and the united states military under the direction of the president is expanding the troop presence in afghanistan when we've failed to subdue the taliban and they're on the rise. why do we think another troop surge is going to win? that's not a fair question to ask. i don't get this, wolf. there is it no way you can square this circle. >> she should come out and say she made a mistake and correct it as quick as possible. coming up, a defiant new claim from north korea. we're getting new information. stand by. are you on medicare?

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right now we're following another inflammatory claim by north korea. it's yet another signal kim jong-un has no intention of giving up his long-range missiles or nuclear bombs. brian todd has details for us. what are the north koreans saying now? >> reporter: the brashness from the north koreans is really remarkable here. just hours after president trump's national security adviser said the president won't accept nuclear weapons in north korea, kim jong-un's regime is defiant, coming out and practically daring the americans to make them give up those weapons. tonight, kim jong-un appears to

be so confident no north korea's nuclear weapons programs that one of his diplomats is declaring he's never giving those weapons up. >> non-negotiable unless the u.s. is prepared to coexist with the nuclear. >> reporter: the representative publicly declaring nuclear weapons are off the table, at the same time lobbing a famine sult at president trump, calling him -- >> the mentally deranked u.s. dotard. >> reporter: the national security adviser said this about his boss's position. >>i >> he's not going to accept this regime, threatening the united states with a nuclear weapon. >> reporter: a former ambassador is one of few american diplomats to ever negotiate with north korea. he says despite the war of words, conflict is not inevitable. >> if north korea's major issue is security concerns and their

major issue is the so-called hostile policy we have towards north korea, we're prepared to talk about their security concerns. but we are not walking away from insisting that they eventually will have to give up their nuclear weapons. >> reporter: tonight the u.s. is concerned about another weapon in kim's arsenal -- cyber warfare. >> they have a very robust capability. it is cheap. if you compare the amount invested in their cyber program compared to the amount invested in conventional weapons systems programs, it is pennies on the dollar. >> reporter: kim skbrong eun is believed to have an army of more than 6,000 hackers, most of them from north korea's top intelligence agency. experts say they've improved their capabilities dramatically over the past five years with one skill that stands out. >> north korea is the only government that robs banks. >> reporter: north korean hackers are believe to have cyber heisted $81 million from the central bank of bangladesh last year. analysts say most of the money they steal pays for kim's weapons programs. the concern now is that north

korea could expand its lists of targets from money to american missiles. >> if there's missile defenses or command and control or military operations that are vulnerable, they will be able to get in, and they will look to disrupt them, cause confusion, turn things off. >> reporter: but america is counterattacking in cyberspace. current and former u.s. military officials have said the u.s. has a program to disrupt north korean missiles with cyber attacks. wolf? >> brian, thanks very much. brian todd reporting. coming up, more on this hour's breaking news. the white house defending chief of staff john kelly's erroneous claims about a florida congresswoman despite video to the contrary. in retirement? then we found out how many years that money would last them. how long do you think we'll keep -- oooooohhh! you stopped! you're gonna leave me back here at year 9? how did this happen? it turned out, a lot of people fell short, of even the average length of retirement. we have to think about not when we expect to live to,

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happening now, breaking news. truth on tape. the white house stands its ground after newly surfaced video shows chief of staff john kelly's claims about a democratic congresswoman were false. and press secretary sarah sanders calls it highly inappropriate to question kelly because he's a four-star general. a mile away, new details tonight about the deadly ambush of u.s. troops at the heart of the kelly controversy. cnn has lern learned that one of the american soldiers killed was found a mile from the scene of the attack. lawmakers are now pressing for more information. are they satisfied with what defense secretary james mattis told them today? rushing off bush. the white house faces new questions about the sharp rebuke of the trump presidency by former president george w. bush. he denounced many of president trump's policies and behaviors without mentioning him by